Report from the 2005 Annual Meeting of ICCAT

December 6, 2005

Release from:
NOAA

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) annual meeting was held in Seville, Spain, from November 14-19, 2005. The United States was successful in negotiating several of its proposals, including a binding recommendation to review data reporting by ICCAT members, and non-binding measures to conduct research on circle hooks and pelagic Sargassum habitat. ICCAT also adopted recommendations on transshipments and bluefin tuna farming. Following a week of difficult negotiations, a serious penalty was imposed on Taiwan for overharvests in the Atlantic bigeye tuna fishery. A U.S. proposal on fishing capacity was not adopted; however, the Commission agreed that a capacity working group should meet in 2007. The Commission agreed to a fourth meeting of its integrated bluefin tuna working group in 2006.

Elections for the Commission Officers and Panel Chairs were also held. As reported in last week's FishNews, Dr. Bill Hogarth was elected ICCAT Chairman for the next 2 years. The 2006 meeting of the Commission will be held in Croatia.

For more information, contact Kimberly.Blankenbeker@noaa.gov.